Is Perfume Gendered? Masculine Notes Explained – Experimental Perfume Club

By Emmanuelle Moeglin, Founder & Perfumer

Perfume is not gendered. The molecules in a bottle do not know who is wearing them: “for him” and “for her” are marketing categories, built mostly over the twentieth century, not properties of the scent.

A rose smells of rose on anyone, and sandalwood melts into every skin.

Yet the labels still shape what we reach for. Here is where the idea of a “masculine” perfume came from, which notes ended up filed as male and why, and how perfumery is moving past the labels. At EPC, our answer is simple: the wearer chooses the scent, not the label.

Is perfume gendered? A short history

For most of its history, perfume was shared. Musk, ambergris and civet were worn by men and women alike. In Grasse, perfumery grew up alongside glove-making, and scented leather gloves were a luxury for both. The eau de Cologne first sold by Giovanni Maria Farina in 1709, a bright citrus water, was worn by everyone; Napoleon is said to have used it by the bottle.

The clear split came later. Between the 1920s and the 1950s, as fashion houses launched fragrances and synthetic materials made perfume an industry, brands needed categories to sell into. Names, bottles, advertising and even the shelves of department stores were divided into men and women, and notes were assigned to each side. Vanilla, worn by both in earlier centuries, drifted to the feminine; vetiver drifted to the masculine. The division was a business decision, not a discovery about scent.

The division was a business decision, not a discovery about scent.

How did fougère, woods and leather become “masculine”?

Lavender in Valensole, Provence, the heart of the fougère.

The archetype of the men’s fragrance is the fougère, French for fern. Ferns barely smell, so the name describes an idea rather than a plant: a green, mossy, aromatic freshness. It began with Fougère Royale, composed by Paul Parquet for Houbigant in 1882. It was one of the first perfumes to use a synthetic material, coumarin, which smells of hay and tonka bean, alongside lavender and oakmoss.

Men adopted it with enthusiasm, and over the following century lavender, coumarin and oakmoss, often with geranium and bergamot, became the backbone of the barbershop and the men’s counter. The aromatic family (lavender, rosemary, sage, wormwood) followed, along with dry woods such as cedar and vetiver, and leather, built from smoky birch tar and the bitter, earthy molecule isobutyl quinoline.

None of these materials is male. Lavender is a flower. Coumarin is the sweet heart of the tonka bean, a staple of gourmand perfumes worn by everyone. Scented leather began on gloves worn by men and women alike. They became “masculine” through repetition: decades of the same accords sold to the same customer, until the association felt natural.

Is rose a feminine note?

Rose is perhaps the most feminised material in Western perfumery, and there is nothing intrinsically feminine about it. Smell a rose absolute closely and you find honey, spice, citrus, wine and a green, peppery stem. Across the Middle East, rose and oud have long been worn by men and women alike. Softness and subtlety do not make a material less “masculine” than sandalwood or leather; they make it a different texture.

Our Rose Rhubarb Essential was designed with exactly this in mind. Moroccan rose absolute is generously overdosed at the heart, but sharp rhubarb and blackcurrant leaf cut through its sweetness, so the rose opens tart, green and a little unruly. It is a rose for people who thought roses were not for them.

Take it further and Rose Rhubarb becomes the foundation of Soleil d’Hiver, our deepest rose. Here, Rose Rhubarb is layered with Cardamom Moss for spice and dry warmth, then grounded with Sandalwood Musk. The result is a woody, spicy rose: still unmistakeably rose at the heart, but with enough depth and edge that anyone who has avoided florals might find this is where they belong.

Blend · Cardamom Moss + Rose Rhubarb + Sandalwood Musk

Soleil d’Hiver

A woody, spicy rose. Rose Rhubarb deepened with cardamom, dry moss and creamy sandalwood.

Discover Soleil d’Hiver

What about jasmine and the white flowers?

Jasmine is the other flower filed under “for her”. Yet the white flowers are among the most carnal materials a perfumer has. Jasmine absolute is heady, spicy and fruity, with a deep animalic facet that comes from indole, a molecule it shares with far less polite things. Used generously, it reads warm and skin-like rather than pretty.

Jasmine

In our Jasmine Osmanthus Essential, jasmine Sambac and osmanthus absolutes are folded into frangipani and creamy coconut until the bouquet turns soft, golden and skin-like. Worn alone it glows; blended with a wood, it changes character entirely, as you will see below.

Woods, leather and aromatics, worn by anyone

The same logic runs the other way. Sandalwood is often filed as masculine, yet it appears in as many fragrances sold to women as to men, because its creamy, milky softness bridges families. Our Sandalwood Musk threads smooth Indian sandalwood with vetiver, soft leather and mineral Ambroxan, and reads differently on every skin.

Sandalwood: creamy, milky and soft.

Cedarwood Absinth is as close as our Essentials come to the classic men’s accords: bitter, herbaceous wormwood, earthy cypriol, Virginia and Atlas cedar, patchouli and a woody tobacco signature that turns softly leathery. The notes are traditional; who wears them is not.

Add Cardamom Moss and the blend becomes Smell Like A King: warmer, spicier, with green cardamom and mineral oakmoss lifting the cedar and tobacco. It reads as traditionally masculine on paper, yet it is one of our most popular Blends with women. The categories dissolve the moment the scent meets skin.

The notes are traditional; who wears them is not.

How perfumery is moving beyond gender labels

The 1990s brought unisex fragrances into the mainstream, and they sold well. Niche and independent houses went further in the 2000s and 2010s, launching perfumes with no gender at all, and the share of genderless launches has grown steadily since. Instead of “for him” and “for her”, more brands now organise their scents by mood, ingredient or fragrance family.

That is how we have always worked at EPC. All nine Essentials are genderless and sorted into three families, Fresh, Mellow and Deep, by how they feel and how they sit on the skin. If you are not sure where to start, find your fragrance family first: it is a far better guide than any gendered shelf.

“Masculine” notes at a glance

Choose by scent, then blend your own

The best way past the labels is to smell without them. Try scents blind, on skin, and notice what you like rather than who it was meant for. Then go further: blending lets you build the balance yourself. A bright floral over a deep wood, or a fresh citrus over a soft leather, gives you a scent no label could have chosen for you.

Try Jasmine Osmanthus with Sandalwood Musk: the creamy wood brings out the warmth in the flowers. Or pair Rose Rhubarb with Cedarwood Absinth, so tart rose meets bitter herbs and smoky cedar. For a brighter take, lift either one with Bergamot Incense. The Discovery Set Essentials holds all nine, so you can test them side by side, and our guide to how to blend a fragrance explains the method step by step.

If you want to go further still, you can compose a fragrance from raw materials in the lab, with no brief except your own taste.

Experience

Luxe Blending Experience

One hour with a Blending Master at our Lab-Boutique in central London. Leave with your own scent.

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Frequently asked questions about gendered perfume

Emmanuelle Moeglin is the founder and perfumer of Experimental Perfume Club. Classically trained at ISIPCA, with 20 years in the fragrance industry, she is a member of the French Society of Perfumers and teaches perfumery from our central London lab.